This morning I stopped at Dunkin' Donuts for a bagel, and parked nose-up on a small incline in 2nd gear. After getting my bagel and coffee, I came out to find my car had rolled about 6' backward, and was close to obstructing the drive-thru lane!

So #1, don't park in 2nd gear, and #2, use the parking brake!!

...something, something, low-compression engine, something, something...

 

Always use reverse when parking a manual transmission vehicle, the relationship between the gears and the reluctance of the engine to turn backwards guarantees it won't roll away 99% of the time. But you should always also use the parking brake every time you park, besides being a good safety practice, it will keep the brake mechanism in good shape and less likely to seize up from lack of use.

 

Hence, the name.

 

Yeah, I know, but this was before buying coffee.
This old dog needs to learn a not-so-new trick...

 

Perhaps you need to have a "pre-coffee" coffee so that you're functional enough to get your normal coffee. Or you could be like my Mother and just have a Starbucks IV drip.

 

X2

 

X 3

however very low compression will let about any stick shift ride roll away.. Way away...

 

1st when facing up hill, and Reverse when down hill. I always use the parking brake and leave it in gear. I'm slowly teaching the wife to leave it in gear. She has stalled out her S4 a few times after I've driven it and left it in gear.

 

I normally park with the car in neutral but with the parking brake engaged. Now if I park on hill I will leave it in either first or reverse depending on incline/decline.

 

Yeah they can get away if they lack compression, back when I was driving cab in college we had a car called the "Smoke Bomb" in the fleet. The Bomb was a Nova sedan with a 250 straight six and 3 on the floor, what it lacked in compression it more than made up for with its own personal fog bank.

One night another cabbie took it home at the end of his shift, parked it in reverse, and sure enough sometime in the wee small hours the old Bomb made a break for it. It rolled out of his driveway, across a state highway, and down into a tobacco field before fetching up against a shed.

Other than "harvesting" a strip of tobacco and denting the tin shed, no real harm was done except to the drivers nerves as he told our boss about the old Nova's nocturnal adventure. Eventually the Bomb had to go to the scrapper when the oil consumption per shift got to 3 or 4 quarts, but since you drove on your own personal skid pad from the oil blowing out everywhere, it was a great way to learn car control...but only when you didn't have a fare.